We will fight on
by Demonslayer572
Summary: Kirito has joined the Black Cats of the Full moon. The longer he is in the guild, the more he reaizes he loves it. He feels it is his obligation, his duty to protect them all... especially her. When the guild falls into a trap with no escape, he immediately stops holding back. When the monsters are beaten, he gives up all of his secrets. Everyone knows, cats land on their feet.
1. Chapter 1

We will fight on

Chapter 1: Her fear

**A/N: Hello every body! First story being published, and I must say I have NO CLUE how to do anything on this site... I spent half an hour trying to figure out how to get this story from a word document onto here, and then to write out that I have no clue how to do anything. All reviews explaining the need to know stuff will be very gratefully appreciated, and I shall give the people help me out a cash prize. The magnificent total ends up at $0.00. I know you're all racing for it! This is the first story I've written, so don't hate on me too bad please. ********Also, I am using the description of Sachi used from the first book, in which it was described that she knew none of the other players in her guild other than through the game, rather than the back story from the Anime and the second book in which they were all friends IRL beforehand. It fits a more with what I'm planning to do later on in the story ;)**

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She sat at the end of the pipe, head down, being covered by the knees she hugged. A small sob escaped her lips every few seconds. He stood, watching, waiting for her to look up and notice him standing a mere five meters from her. As the girl continued to cry, he eventually made his presence known to her.

"Sachi."

The girl jumped, and her eyes shot from the floor into his own. At the sight of his midnight black irises, she seemed to calm. She stopped sobbing, instead only turning her head back in front of her, and saying "Oh. It's you, Kirito." The girl stopped, and the two of them stayed still and silent for several moments. His eyes were trained on her form, huddled into a defensive curl. Her dark blue hair, framing her face and falling just past her shoulders in the back, seemed to have been distressed in her desperate flee from her own guild. Her armor, normally a shining steel grey tinged in blue, was covered in the cloak that shielded her from the players looking for her on the map. As she sat in the drain, she looked as if she hoped no one would find her. It was only the swordsman's high Tracking skill that made it so her discovery was possible. She would have been in the drain until the end of the game otherwise.

"Don't just stand there. You sit down too." Startled at her suddenly speaking again, the boy dressed all in black took the place she indicated across from her in the pipe. It was such a small place that they were forced to entwine their legs to be able to fit with any comfort. She looked up into his eyes, and he again marveled at the depth within them. He looked, falling deeper and deeper into those pools of blue. The only way her eyes could be described were as the ocean past twilight, a dark and mystifying blue that only seemed to grow more different and varied as one looked longer. If he stayed staring into those eyes for too long, he swore he would become lost within them.

"I'm scared of dying." She said this, and he seemed shocked to hear the words. She continued, saying "I'm scared of losing myself to this world… to one that doesn't even truly exist except in the form of data made of 1s and 0s." She looked up further, at the top of the pipe they sat in. She then said the one phrase the swordsman never expected to hear. "Let's run away."

He responded in a gentle tone. "Run away? From what? And where?"

"From this city, from the Black Cats, from the monsters… from this game. Away from SAO." The fact that she was able to say those words seemed to relieve her, but they had the opposite effect on the swordsman.

"Run from the game… do you mean… killing ourselves? That's the only way out without continuing the fights."

She gave a small, low laugh. "Yea. That wouldn't be so horrible… no. No, that's not right. If I had the courage to die, than I wouldn't be hiding in this pipe… and I wouldn't be having this conversation with you. As she spoke, her eyes dropped lower and lower, until she was once again staring at the floor. "Hey… what do you think is the purpose of all this?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"This game. Trapping us here. Why do you think he did it? Why did he have to trap thousands of people… Kill, thousands of people, just so far, with still more than half of the levels to go, in this game? What reasoning could a man have that would drive him to create a game we can't leave?"

He stopped. He thought, his eyes trained on her shoes, as he tried to think of an answer she would accept. "I don't think there is a reason. At least, no reason an ordinary person like you and I would understand. I think he just wanted to feel like a god. That is what he said at the beginning, that he made this world so he could watch over it and play with it as he saw fit." A tone of disgust slowly filled his voice as he thought about the man he had once viewed as a hero. He looked out of the tunnel, towards the distant lights of the city that was the starting point of the 28th floor, the lights so small and bright they could be mistaken for stars.

A small smile graced his lips, as he thought back to the real world, and the only time that he really saw the stars. A trip out of his home town, to the countryside where his grandparents lived. He remembered that night so vividly, as he had sat outside, looking into the sky with wonder at the small pinpricks of light that filled the air. Normally, the sky was so clouded and polluted that he was lucky to see the brightest of stars.

His attention was brought back to the girl in the drain when he heard drips of water hitting the ground. When he found the source, he saw the rivers of tears coming off of her face. Flowing from her eyes, which looked like pools of sorrow. She tried to hide the tears when he noticed, but it didn't work. He reached over, and helped her wipe the salty streams away.

"You have every reason to be afraid." He began as he wiped off her tears. "I have days where I don't even want to go out and do it all… it is a lot. And there _IS _a weight to it. But think… what about the other side? Isn't there anyone there you want to see again?" At his words, the girl calmed a little bit, as she thought to the real world. The world outside of the game.

"I have my mother." After that she fell silent for a little bit, looking as if she was trying to come up with another. "She's all I really had in the real world. My father left us when I was too young to remember him. I've always been really shy too… I didn't have any close friends from school or anything. The only person on that side was Mom." The boy wasn't sure how to respond to her. She looked into his eyes once again, and her words continued to flow. "I honestly think that this world has been better to me than that one, even if I am more afraid here regularly. I have all the others from the Guild. Kaita, Sasamaru, Tetsuo, Ducker… they were with me from the very start, from when I first stepped out of the starting city. And also, there's you, showing up when we were in such a bad spot and saving us." She stopped and let out a small giggle as he started scratching the back of his head.

"A real laugh huh? Guess I can't be as bad with girls as I thought if I managed to get that." She laughed some more at his expense. "Are you feeling better now? Are you alright to head back to the guild?"

She opened her eyes, still smiling, and nodded.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thank you so much to those of you who have welcomed me onto this site. I hope I can make this story live up to your expectations.**

Sachi was in her room, presumably asleep. Kirito sat downstairs, waiting for the other members of the Black Cats of the Full Moon to return from searching for her within the dungeon. As soon as he made sure she was fine in her room, he had sent a message to Kaita, the Guild leader, saying that he had found her and gotten her back to the hotel the guild was staying in. He sat in the front room, and waited for the others to get back. As he waited, he thought back to that day. November 6, 2022. He was surprised. It hadn't felt like they had been in the game for over five months. He remembered the feeling of coming back to this world after the Beta, with all the excitement a then 14-year-old could feel. He ran into the field, and was followed by a new player. He taught the new player, whose name he discovered was Klien, the basics of the game. They continued hunting the monsters, and Klien eventually said he had to get off to eat dinner. They said their goodbyes, and as he turned around to continue leveling, he heard Klien complain that the log out button was missing.

That was when this world stopped being a game.

They, along with every other player in the game, were teleported into the center starting plaza. And they were told that this game was no longer a game.

This was reality.

They could not log out, it wasn't a glitch, it was an intended feature of the game.

If they died here, they died in the real world.

The boy's snapped open again, not wanting to remember the first day. He still had nightmares of it sometimes. Of the figure coming down from the sky to shatter their realities.

Finally he saw Kaita and the other members of the Black Cats enter the inn. He stood up, and went over to them. He told them that Sachi had gone to bed, and when they asked him how he found her, all he said was 'instinct'. He still couldn't reveal his level to the other members; they would feel betrayed if they knew he was almost twenty levels above them. The others reluctantly accepted his answers to their questions. Even if they knew he wasn't telling the full truth, they were too nice of people to push hard for the information. As they started to go up the stairs, He pulled Kaita away from the group for a moment.

"I think you need to let Sachi continue being a Lancer."

Kaita was confused at first, and then started to talk. "But wait, she said she wanted to be a sword and shield user. We can't let you keep going in as forward alone, I mean come on. It's known to be the hardest position, and we can't keep forcing you to-"

"Nobody is forcing me to do anything. I like being forward, it's where I feel I belong, and Tetsuo is alo a forward, so I'm never alone. Sachi's too timid, too shy. She doesn't belong there, and I feel it would be better for her and the rest of the guild if she were allowed to continue being in her old position."_ Plus, that way it will be easier for me to watch over her._ The words almost came flying unbidden out of his mouth. He barely stopped them from being spoken against his conscious will.

"Well, if that's the way you truly feel… then sure. If she wants to go back to being a lancer, all she had to do was ask. I don't want to force anyone to do anything that would place them in danger, especially not someone from my own guild."

As Kirito nodded his thanks to the leader of the guild, they both started to head for the stairs. He couldn't help but notice Kaita stealing glances at him out of the corner of his eye. After the third time he did that, he decided he had enough. "What is it?"

Genuinely surprised Kirito had noticed him, Kaita stuttered for a moment, trying to collect his thoughts. "Ah, well, I, uh… I just wanted to ask. What happened? I know it was more than you finding her and telling her to come back. I've been with her since I found her about to leave the city, and I just wanted to make sure she was okay. She had looked like she had given up then, and something like this couldn't have been small and simple. I just want to be certain she hadn't given up her will to live."

Kirito stopped for a moment, his foot resting on the final step of the stairs. He looked over to Kaita, contemplating for a moment. Surely it would be fine to tell him, right? He obviously cared for the girl, if only as a friend. But no details needed to be spoken. "I found Sachi in a small pipe, crying. I talked with her a bit, and she confessed that she was afraid of dying. When I managed to calm her down, I told her the guild would be strong enough to protect her. She seemed to accept it, and I led her back here. You know the rest."

Kaita gave him a small look, surprise in his eyes. "Afraid… I wish she had spoken up sooner. Thanks for telling me that, and for coming to me. I'll make sure that everyone knows to look out for her. I wouldn't want a guild member dying under my command because I didn't know to watch out for them." Solid determination filled his brown eyes as he looked into Kirito's onyx orbs.

Kirito gave the man a look of thanks, and continued up the stairs, turning towards his own room, separating from the guild leader. Going inside his room, he began to prepare for the night as he always did. While the Black Cats slept, he continued to the front lines, to level and map more of the floor. During the day he helped them all level, and he leveled himself during the night, further increasing the distance between himself and his guild mates.

As he finished up the preparations for the night, he heard a small knock on the door to his room. He hurriedly switched all of his gear off, calling a quick "Come in", his body half turned to the door.

When the door opened, he saw that is was Sachi. She was wrapped in the same mantle Kirito had found her in before, and hesitation filled her eyes.

"Um, Kirito… I was hoping… would you mind if I slept with you tonight?" She quickly thought over her words, and a rush of red lit her face up, being easily seen in the torch light from the hall. "I-in the s-same bed I mean, nothing like _that_, just…" At this, she shied away, a small blush remaining on her face, and she continued. "I was just hoping that I could stay in the same bed as you… I felt safe, with you next to me earlier."

When he heard her request, Kirito had a small expression of shock etched onto his face. _There goes my hopes of leveling tonight_, he thought, a wry smile replacing the small open circle his mouth had been. "If it would help you, then gladly." As he said this he pulled the covers back, giving her a place to lie down. Her face still burning a slight shade of red, she shuffled over to the bed, lying down next to the Black Swordsman. He slowly lowered himself down next to her, a small smile on his face. The two sat there for a little while, just looking at each other. She looked at him, her eyes slowly drooping lower and lower, as his stayed stubbornly open.

"Ne, Kirito, aren't you tired at all?"

"Not really. I haven't slept well for a while now. I'm not really tired. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. Just go to sleep."

She looked like she didn't want to, her eyes trying to stay open with his. But, try as she might, she couldn't keep her eyes open. He watched, a smile playing itself across his lips as he heard her breath slow, and he saw the slow and steady rise of her chest. He just sat, watching as she slept. His thoughts continued on, with one common theme to every racing image and idea in his head.

I will protect them all.


End file.
